See the Global Shipping Revolution in These Beautiful Ocean Maps

The global shipping industry has completely transformed our world: today, 90 per cent of everything in your life arrives via cargo ship. These two maps prove just how dramatically international trade has increased, by comparing the oceans of the 19th century with those of the late 20th.

The visualisations highlight the sheer volume of stuff that's trekked across our oceans. Two maps pointed out by QZ, in particular, illustrate the revolution in shipping. One shows routes in the 19th century:

And the other shows routes from 1980 to 1997—when our contemporary global economy had already emerged:

The contrast is wild. It's not just a boom in volume, but also in precision. The 19th century map is hazy and vague, with ships curling in and out of traditional routes governed by the winds, while the contemporary map is a study in precision navigation and self-propulsion.

The two maps also depict a more shadowy shift, as Schmidt points out. In the 1800s, this was how America (and other nations) gleaned intelligence about the world around it:

It's a relatively complete view, on the other hand, of something more restricted but nearly as interesting: the way that the 19th century American state was able to see and take measure of the world. No one, today, needs to be told that patterns of state surveillance, data collection, and storage are immensely important. Charts like these provide an interesting and important locus for seeing how states "saw," to commandeer a phrase from James Scott.

In other words, the 19th century map also depicts how much we knew about the world around us during that century. Check out much more information and many more maps on Schmidt's website. [QZ]